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1 Beaverton Military- World War II

The War: An Intimate History, 1941-1945

by and

The War: An Intimate History, 1941-1945 Cover

ISBN13: 9780307262837
ISBN10: 0307262839
Condition: Standard
Dustjacket: Standard
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Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

The vivid voices that speak from these pages are not those of historians or scholars. They are the voices of ordinary men and women who experienced — and helped to win — the most devastating war in history, in which between 50 and 60 million lives were lost.

Focusing on the citizens of four towns — Luverne, Minnesota; Sacramento, California; Waterbury, Connecticut; Mobile, Alabama — The War follows more than forty people from 1941 to 1945. Woven largely from their memories, the compelling, unflinching narrative unfolds month by bloody month, with the outcome always in doubt. All the iconic events are here, from Pearl Harbor to the liberation of the concentration camps — but we also move among prisoners of war and Japanese American internees, defense workers and schoolchildren, and families who struggled simply to stay together while their men were shipped off to Europe, the Pacific, and North Africa.

Enriched by maps and hundreds of photographs, including many never published before, this is an intimate, profoundly affecting chronicle of the war that shaped our world.

Review:

"This lavishly illustrated companion to the September PBS documentary series reduces the American side of WWII to the local and personal. Documentarian Burns (The Civil War) and historian Ward (The Civil War: An Illustrated History) foreground the iconic experiences of ordinary people, including a young girl interned in a Japanese camp in the Philippines, marines in the thick of combat in the Pacific and a fighter pilot who exchanges letters with his sweetheart. Their stories are full of anxiety and exhilaration, terror and pathos. (Sample vignette: a GI casually tosses pebbles into the skull of a Japanese machine-gunner, still upright and wide-eyed after the top of his head has been shot off). The authors' portrait of the home front glows with nostalgia — war bonds, scrap-metal drives, USO dances — but they also note racial tensions at a Mobile, Ala., shipyard and the bitterness of Japanese-American soldiers whose families were interned. In the background, Roosevelt and Churchill confer, Patton struts and growls, and arrows march across maps as the authors deftly sketch major campaigns and battles and offer tart criticism of inept generals. This visually appealing coffee-table book gives little idea of how and why America won, but a strong sense of what it felt like on the way to victory. Photos. (Sept. 12)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Review:

"Masterful in mass-audience appeal, this likely best-seller, though U.S.-centric, can inspire exploration of the wider contexts of WWII's origin and course." Booklist

Review:

"Epic, lavishly illustrated accompaniment to the PBS series....Excellent — an introduction to the war for the uninitiated, and a scrapbook of sorts for those who remember it." Kirkus Reviews

Review:

"This companion book to the duo's upcoming PBS documentary is chock-full of conventional wisdom, photographs, maps, and personal anecdotes, covering the war at home, as well as in the Pacific, Europe, and North Africa. Sure to be popular." Library Journal

Review:

"Part history, part memoir, and part photo album, The War is compelling on many levels. The photographs are a mesmerizing collection of both the war the GIs saw and the changing world they left behind." Philadelphia Inquirer

Review:

"By all means, see the TV series, but this work stands on its own. It is war at a most personal level....The War is rich in often heartbreaking combat photographs and scenes from the heartland." San Antonio Express-News

Review:

"The War is at times almost too graphic in its presentation, but it serves as an excellent lesson in sacrifice, patriotism and a lost innocence that was irretrievable for millions of Americans and their progeny." BookReporter.com

Review:

"The companion book tells the stories of about 40 men and women....In each case they tell poignant personal stories, but collectively they provide a common thread of what it was like to be either on the front line or on the home front." Kansas City Star

Review:

"What, one wonders, is left to say about this war? The answer is not so much new information as new interpretation....Part history, part memoir and part photo album, The War is compelling on many levels." Houston Chronicle

Synopsis:

The companion volume to the forthcoming PBS series, The War is the story of World War II captured in the hearts and minds, words and deeds of those who made history at its most essential level: on the battlefields and on the homefront. Enriched by maps and hundreds of photographs, including many never published before, this is an intimate, profoundly affecting chronicle of the war that shaped our world.

Synopsis:

Enriched by maps and hundreds of photographs, the companion volume to the forthcoming PBS series, "The War" is the story of World War II captured in the hearts, minds, words, and deeds of those who made history at its most essential level: on the battlefields and on the homefront.
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About the Author

Geoffrey C. Ward wrote the script for the film series The War and is the winner of five Emmys and two Writers Guild of America awards for his work for public television. He is also a historian and biographer and the author of fourteen books, including most recently Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson. He won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1989 and the Francis Parkman Prize in 1990. He lives in New York City.

Ken Burns, producer and director of the film series The War, founded his own documentary company, Florentine Films, in 1976. His films include Jazz, Baseball, and The Civil War, which was the highest-rated series in the history of American public television. His work has won numerous prizes, including the Emmy and Peabody Awards, and two Academy Award nominations. He lives in Walpole, New Hampshire.

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What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 2 comments:
eglazier, November 8, 2007 (view all comments by eglazier)
dr falconberg's comments were well spoken, but if she wants that story told, tell it herself.
the war was far larger than this one subject, as bad as it was, to dr falconberg and all the other unfortunates that were victimized. ken burns' subjects were the american men who fought that war. whatever they may have done, as detailed by her, is also a result of the war, and combat. it turns men bad. it has the same effect on women in combat, as witnessed by the vietnamese who fought. it does wonders for children as witnessed by the child soldiers all over the world.
dr falconberg war is bad. forget the bad results to your victims. first get rid of war.
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atheo, October 27, 2007 (view all comments by atheo)
“A Letter to Ken Burns about The War: An Intimate History”
Dr. Suki Falconberg


'The War,’ Mr. Burns, is the Yokosuka rape queues in August 1945, with GI’s lined up for blocks, two abreast, to get at the Japanese girls enslaved in 'comfort stations’ for them—with the full cooperation of the American and Japanese authorities. Destitute, vulnerable girls were raped into unconsciousness as the men joked and laughed and jostled in line, waiting their turn. Some girls bled to death. Some committed suicide—that is, the lucky ones who could escape. Not one 'comfort girl’ has told her story—due to shame. Why did you not tell this particular 'intimate history’ of 'The War,’ Mr. Burns? Especially since 'usage’ of the girls was almost 100%. Why has the small detail that almost every GI in Japan, 1945, was a rapist escaped you? Why his this big 'dirty secret’ of war never been covered?

'The War,’ Mr. Burns, is the men who lined up to use the prostitutes on Hotel Street in Honolulu: women were raped 100 times a day—a different man entered the girl every three minutes. Why should I mourn these rapists when they were killed in the attack at Pearl Harbor? They slaughtered the bodies of these women in a fashion far more brutal than any bombing could ever be.

'The War,’ Mr. Burns, is the widespread rape of French girls by GI’s after they 'liberated’ Paris. Rape by American soldiers was so common that Eisenhower actually had to acknowledge it was happening, although he did nothing to stop it.

'The War’ is the public parks in Palermo, where pimps considerately laid out mattresses so the GI’s could use starving Italian girls comfortably, for a dollar or two a turn.

'The War’ is homeless, prostituted girls in Berlin doing it in the rubble for a few cents and agreeing to 'share’ a GI bed so they would simply have a place to sleep that night. This, after they had already had the insides raped out of them by the invading Russian army and then were labeled 'whores’ since it was a convenient way for the authorities to deal with these 'ruined’ women.

The War’ is the village in Okinawa where GI’s raped every woman, girl, and child—the victims were too sick and starving to even try to run from their attackers.

'The War,’ Mr. Burns, is the starvation prostitution forced upon tens of thousands of European and Japanese girls (some barely into their teens) by the ridiculous conflicts men create to display their phallic brutality. It is also the brothel attached to a military base in Arizona stocked with 'worn-out whores’ and reserved exclusively for black solders, so that the white GI’s would not have to 'contaminate’ their penises by raping the same prostitutes. Thousands of black GI’s passed through this brothel daily, and who knows what insane, pathetic creatures they left dead of rape and misery.

'The War,’ Mr. Burns, is not your blind, masculine-centric vision of it, full of all these lies about valor and sacrifice and courage and nobility. There is little that is noble about the raping, war-making brute we call a soldier.

I was raped and prostituted by the U.S. Military. Why don’t you tell my story, Mr. Burns? It is far more 'colorful’ than that of these soldiers who raped their way through Europe and Asia Don’t you want to know what it’s like to be mounted by a line of soldiers? It is a hell beyond any possible imagining. It has happened to me.

My PTSD, as it is so fashionably called, is far more intense than that of the men who raped the life and dignity and beauty out of me. The emotional damage to the soldier does not compare to the suffering he inflicts on the women he ravages.

War is never good for women. War sexually enslaves women. Men gain by war. They have the pleasure of rape: they mount starving women, 'cheap whores,’ and take their pleasure, and the woman is silenced forever by her shame.

What a male abomination is not just your grandiose seven-part, tidy version of 'The War,’ but PBS as well. You pretend to be enlightened but you are as blind and callous and cruel as the soldier rapists who destroyed the lives and bodies of so many women.

I looked at your so-called 'companion volume’ to the series. The index carries not one reference to rape, prostitution, military brothels, or the sexual suffering of millions of woman. How can you overlook, ignore, dismiss a 'fact’ so enormous? As if these women simply never existed.

What a betrayal of our raped bodies is your grand, masculine-centric version of 'The War.’ Even your title indicates that you own this territory, this war, your war. It is, indeed, your war—since all wars are the product of your male phallic cruelty.

War never 'liberates’ women. War sexually destroys us. It has never been otherwise. Briseis had no say in her fate as a 'captive’ woman. No one asked her what she thought of the arrangement. No one has asked the Filipina women trafficked onto the fifty U.S. bases in Iraq what they think of their lot as the GI’s line up for their five-minute shot inside them.

Men make war because they love war. Don’t ask me to feel sorry for the way they 'suffer.’

Dr. Suki Falconberg, Rape/Prostitution Survivor

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Product Details

ISBN:
9780307262837
Author:
Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns
Publisher:
Knopf Publishing Group
Author:
Ward, Geoffrey C.
Author:
Burns, Ken
Subject:
Military - World War II
Subject:
United States - 20th Century/WWII
Subject:
World war, 1939-1945
Subject:
United states
Subject:
World War, 1939-1945 -- Social aspects.
Subject:
World War, 1939-1945 -- United States.
Subject:
Military - United States
Subject:
Military-World War II General
Copyright:
2007
Publication Date:
September 11, 2007
Binding:
HARDCOVER
Grade Level:
General/trade
Language:
English
Illustrations:
394 ILLUSTRATIONS, 21 MAPS
Pages:
480
Dimensions:
11.14x9.44x1.36 in. 4.36 lbs.
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Related Subjects

Arts and Entertainment » Music » General
History and Social Science » Military » General History
History and Social Science » Military » US Military » General
History and Social Science » Military » World War II » General
History and Social Science » Military » World War II » Picture Books
History and Social Science » US History » 20th Century » General

The War: An Intimate History, 1941-1945 Used Hardcover
0 stars - 0 reviews
$7.95 In Stock
Product details 480 pages Knopf Publishing Group - English 9780307262837 Reviews:
"Publishers Weekly Review" by , "This lavishly illustrated companion to the September PBS documentary series reduces the American side of WWII to the local and personal. Documentarian Burns (The Civil War) and historian Ward (The Civil War: An Illustrated History) foreground the iconic experiences of ordinary people, including a young girl interned in a Japanese camp in the Philippines, marines in the thick of combat in the Pacific and a fighter pilot who exchanges letters with his sweetheart. Their stories are full of anxiety and exhilaration, terror and pathos. (Sample vignette: a GI casually tosses pebbles into the skull of a Japanese machine-gunner, still upright and wide-eyed after the top of his head has been shot off). The authors' portrait of the home front glows with nostalgia — war bonds, scrap-metal drives, USO dances — but they also note racial tensions at a Mobile, Ala., shipyard and the bitterness of Japanese-American soldiers whose families were interned. In the background, Roosevelt and Churchill confer, Patton struts and growls, and arrows march across maps as the authors deftly sketch major campaigns and battles and offer tart criticism of inept generals. This visually appealing coffee-table book gives little idea of how and why America won, but a strong sense of what it felt like on the way to victory. Photos. (Sept. 12)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
"Review" by , "Masterful in mass-audience appeal, this likely best-seller, though U.S.-centric, can inspire exploration of the wider contexts of WWII's origin and course."
"Review" by , "Epic, lavishly illustrated accompaniment to the PBS series....Excellent — an introduction to the war for the uninitiated, and a scrapbook of sorts for those who remember it."
"Review" by , "This companion book to the duo's upcoming PBS documentary is chock-full of conventional wisdom, photographs, maps, and personal anecdotes, covering the war at home, as well as in the Pacific, Europe, and North Africa. Sure to be popular."
"Review" by , "Part history, part memoir, and part photo album, The War is compelling on many levels. The photographs are a mesmerizing collection of both the war the GIs saw and the changing world they left behind."
"Review" by , "By all means, see the TV series, but this work stands on its own. It is war at a most personal level....The War is rich in often heartbreaking combat photographs and scenes from the heartland."
"Review" by , "The War is at times almost too graphic in its presentation, but it serves as an excellent lesson in sacrifice, patriotism and a lost innocence that was irretrievable for millions of Americans and their progeny."
"Review" by , "The companion book tells the stories of about 40 men and women....In each case they tell poignant personal stories, but collectively they provide a common thread of what it was like to be either on the front line or on the home front."
"Review" by , "What, one wonders, is left to say about this war? The answer is not so much new information as new interpretation....Part history, part memoir and part photo album, The War is compelling on many levels."
"Synopsis" by , The companion volume to the forthcoming PBS series, The War is the story of World War II captured in the hearts and minds, words and deeds of those who made history at its most essential level: on the battlefields and on the homefront. Enriched by maps and hundreds of photographs, including many never published before, this is an intimate, profoundly affecting chronicle of the war that shaped our world.
"Synopsis" by , Enriched by maps and hundreds of photographs, the companion volume to the forthcoming PBS series, "The War" is the story of World War II captured in the hearts, minds, words, and deeds of those who made history at its most essential level: on the battlefields and on the homefront.
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